The Great White Con 2019 “New Einstein” Award

The omens are good that 2019 is destined to be a year of firsts in the Arctic. Our regular reader(s) will no doubt fondly recall previous editions of our annual Great White Con “New Einstein” Award? 2019’s competition breaks all the moulds by opening the running with a quote from Snow White’s home from home at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum rather than one of the usual “skeptical” venue!

Your unnecessary over the top haughtiness and implicit threats is not helping your communication style one bit Jim. I am far from impressed atm with your version of the Ivory Tower you seem to inhabit. By all means ‘sharpen your sword’ if that is what you imagine you are dealing with because someone says they do not quite understand what you thread is all about.

You can either answer such reasonable questions with a modicum of sincerity and genuineness or continue in the direction you are heading.

It has been a long journey, following one’s curiosity. 1957 was declared “International Geophysical Year (IGY)” and I completed my degree in 1962. Lecturers taught two theories about ice ages, which was a concern. One that glacial advance needed a miraculously open Arctic Ocean to provide the snow over a frozen continent. Which seemed unlikely. The other theory was that the change was driven by change in the solar system. At the time, there was not enough evidence to conclude either way.

Then the data accumulated confirming that climate history was periodic. Not random with no mention of CO2. My own work of financial and political history was essentially completed in the early 1980s. The main observation has been that society suffers huge and dislocating experiments in authoritarian government. Such as over the last 120 years.

I began writing about climate in 2008 because of the abuse of science. Similar to that which accompanied the “ending action” of authoritarianism in the early 1600s. When to defy the dogma about the solar system then was worth your life. So, history is in another exciting time when the public grabs some commonsense and begins to reform the threats attendant to power-mad bureaucrats. The are some “popular uprisings” going on lately. Thought you had a site for open inquiry.

On the science side I’ve been telling people that climate study is in a renaissance with Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory. And this BSc. has checked the physics with top PhD physicists.

Thanks very much for the long form commentary. If you remember the IGY then this video may well be of interest to you? (Click through to YouTube for the optimal viewing experience):

We do like to think that we are “a site for open inquiry”. However you surely must know the drill by now? For example, can you provide a few links to peer reviewed papers in reputable academic journals elucidating the work of the “top PhD physicists” you refer to?

Will Happer Prof. Emeritus, Physics Princeton.
On geology:
Ian Plimer, Prof. Emeritus, Earth Sciences, Melbourne University.
It is worth noting that they do not support the notion that any kind of CO2 causes significant warming.
And climate trend changes to warming have preceded the increase in CO2 concentrations by some 600 to 800 years.
Stuff like this as well as the links from solar activity to cosmic rays to clouds to cooling is easier to teach than first-year physics labs.
Saw the footage of the guy on a tow-board or whatever they call them.

Jim, certainly, happy to give you some references to papers, but I’m traveling, so it may be a few days. However, as a scientist, I’m sure you are aware of many of them as well, since that’s how ‘science progresses’. (Thesis, antithesis, synthesis – the dialectic).

In the meantime, here’s a challenge. Why don’t you come up with two, and I’ll come up with a few, and we can compare.

And my point about politicians is how they use (and twist) science for power. For example, see “Statement for Policymakers” vs. the underlying IPCC science or Obama’s famous quote “The consensus is that Climate Change is real, man made and dangerous”.

Sorry for the long delay – traveling and with relatives caused me to defer this reply. However, I think you misinterpreted my request. I was asking you for the two best papers you had seen that questioned CAGW and the Arctic “Death Spiral” (see Dr. Wadham’s fun articles for more info on that). My point about the Dialectic was that as someone interested in the Arctic and Climate Science, you must surely be aware of legitimate dissent (dare I say skepticism) in the scientific community, However, you gave me your favorite consensus papers – hardly what I was looking for.

Here are a few published, peer-reviewed papers which have a contrarian view of the science. The first two are examples of papers that challenge the notion of high climate sensitivity (increase due to doubling of CO2, for example). The second three are examples of papers that are contradictory of conventional wisdom about sea ice, including both causes of sea ice variability, and whether current levels of sea ice are unusually low (and therefore human driven vs. natural variation).

Enjoy, your comments would be appreciated, as well as your thoughts on other contrarian papers you have seen/take seriously.